mind

A recent habit has seeped into my daily life: that of unfocussing my eyes. seemingly unimportant though it may appear, this phenomenon's effects reach about as far as a fly-fishing pole. At one end of the swing the hook nicks my field of vision for as soon as my eyes give up on good resolution i've zoomed out of the setting. At the upswing my cognitives drown. My concentration nearly matches that of the fed fish. The streaks of conversation replace the blur of the flinging insect at the surface of the water. Lost in a retreating swirl i maintain only the ability to nod and hum in agreeable reinforcements. the optical landscape fails to retain all three dimensions and i hover somewhere between one and two. i wish i could say of my mind at this moment that it is actively pursuing an independent light, a new sun worthy of the distraction. But such is not the case and it rather resembles the struggle of an inexperienced toddler treading water. Full submersion is in my experience comparable only to the crucial moment of teeter-totter in the decision between sleep and wakefulness in a lucid dream. It is an anxiously exciting source of stress, but the teeter-totter is certainly more taxing. Both feelings belong to the same lineage, sharing a denominator, but my recent habit's numerator is weaker.

Refocusing attempts involve re-calibrating the entire system, like restarting an unwilling and rusty motorboat engine. It takes a convincing argument from within, along with a determined will, to jump-start the pupil contractions. The mind has to hop on board for concentration which demands the difficult task of reversing the negligent swirl which by now is an equal match between swimmer and riptide. Biting lips, tongue, or cheek helps, as does pinching tender skin with unforgiving fortnight-old fingernails. Thus i can emerge from the depths of the underwater vortex in order to focus my attention for another depleting minute on the court case in my lap until the underwater roller-coaster grips me once more. This cycle ends in stinging eyes.